


Legendary - Sky

by PKofLight



Series: Linked Universe - Legendary Works [2]
Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: All the others fall asleep before they can say anything., Gen, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:11:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PKofLight/pseuds/PKofLight
Summary: “Tell me, Link, what is it that you truly wish to know?”





	Legendary - Sky

It was storming. The group had found themselves in the small shelter of a hallowed out cave alongside the mountainside, a small fire burning in the middle. The smoke wafted gently outward of the cave, and the Hero of the Sky watched it as it drifted. It was getting late, as he watched the Hero of Wind nod off, leaning against the Hero of Warriors. Gently wrapped around him was the ends of the blue scarf that hung off the knight, meant to keep him warm in the chilly air.

The others were also getting ready for a night in some cave, as the Hero of Hyrule quietly rolled out his bedroll, looking ready to fall asleep right there. The Hero of the Four Sword had already gotten situated in one corner, and was cleaning his precious blade. The Hero of Time was removing pieces of his armour, as the Hero of the Wilds worked at keeping the fire going. The Hero of Twilight had gone off ahead, but Wolfie was situated right next to the Wild One. The Hero of Legend was cross-legged on his bedroll, a book open in his hands.

It was storming, but the Hero of the Sky considered it relatively quiet. He bit down the fear of the storm outside, staring out at the rain, worrying about the Hero of Twilight. He bit down the want for the rushing of the air, of the distant sound of Loftwings... He shook his head to scatter out the thoughts, before settling down himself and watching the others slowly nod off themselves. 

He'd gotten used to their sleep habits at this point. Over the course of the adventure, he'd taken note of each of them, and what they did. He pulled out his harp, and lightly began to play a tune, not just for himself, but the others as well.

He watched as the Hero of Wind finally succumbed to sleep, nestled safely in the arms of the Hero of Warriors. Together, sleeping how they were, they looked somewhat precious, but the Hero of the Sky was not about to admit that out loud. Next out was the Hero of Hyrule, followed closely by the Hero of the Four Sword and Wolfie. Then, it was the Hero of the Wild, and the Hero of Time. Though the others may not realize it, since the Hero of the Sky always took so long to fall asleep... he had rarely seen the Hero of Legend fall asleep. He usually stayed up late into the night, even longer than him, reading a book, or even pretending to sleep like the others. But... he knew. He knew.

They all had their pains. 

The Hero of the Wind needed someone to cuddle without the sound of the water. The Hero of Time sometimes stayed late, playing his ocarina. The Hero of the Wild had frequent nightmares. The Hero of the Four Sword was restless in his sleep, and likely never fell into much needed deep sleep. It was a shame, how much they were so affected by what they had gone through. 

Eventually, even the Hero of the Sky closed his eyes. 

“You, there!” said a voice, suddenly, and the Hero of the Sky bolted upright in his sleep. He glanced around the campsite, but all the others had suddenly vanished. 

“... Guys...?” voiced the Hero of the Sky, concerned about the lack of other Heroes. 

“Come here, boy!” said the voice again, and the Hero turned to see a startling sight. He had never expected to see the Skyloft fortune teller in any version of Hyrule. Sparrot, he had considered, was a strange man. No one in Skyloft quite knew what to make of him. The man's cat-like, wide eyes, apparently served as his view into the future, amplified by the crystal ball that the Hero had once helped him to recover. “Allow me to see you into the future.”

“Sparrot?” the Hero voiced in a strangled tone. “What are you-?!”

“Enough of that, boy. Come here, now,” Sparrot worded. It was then the Hero realized that the man was standing outside of the cave, in the wilderness beyond. There was no rain evident around them. There were no puddles, or mud. It was strange in his eyes. “Your future, Link, has always been a sight for me to behold!”

The Hero of the Sky slowly stepped up to Sparrot, lost beyond all belief. “Alright... but... what are you doing here...?” 

“Here, boy?” Sparrot asked, with what seemed to be mild confusion, almost as if he was meant to be here all along. “Why, Link, we are right where we need to be. Your future has told me so.” 

Suddenly, the expanse around them changed in a streaming brush of fresh air, rich with the scent of Loftwing. The Hero glanced about, tears brought to his eyes as he stared out at the very sight that he missed, and kept so dear and so close to his heart. Skyloft surrounded them, in all its beautiful glory. He could see the Knight Academy, and the very market he had spent plenty of his time. All the different houses of his friends and peers. Loftwings soared above and around them, nearly dangerously close to him and Sparrot. They were of nearly every colour, some that he hadn't even imagined on Loftwings, as they circled above them.

“This, boy, is the sight close to your heart,” Sparrot stated in a cool, calm voice that the Hero would never have associated with the man. “However, this is not the fate that I saw in your future that day. It has since changed - you grow to be many things, boy.” 

The Hero paused from his admiring of Loftwings, and stared down at the man. “... Then... What is it...? My future?”

Sparrow went quiet, as the Loftwings continued to soar above them. “Your future is one that is so strange. It is one that spans centuries, and I cannot comprehend it. It ends in sorrow for you, but at some point, there is a sense of happiness that I can see.” Sparrot wandered over to the edge of Skyloft, and the Hero followed him. “Tell me, Link, what is it that you truly wish to know?” 

“What do you mean? You were telling me my future,” the Hero stated calmly. “And you said... it ends sad.”

“Yes, yes. For you, I suppose, it would,” Sparrot said. “But, honestly, boy, what is it that you truly wish to know? Why else would you have come to see me, seeking me out as you did?” 

... What?

The Hero of the Sky found himself sputtering. “But, Sparrot, you're the one that just showed up here, and brought me back to Skyloft! I didn't want this, right here, and right now, in the middle of this craziness.” What else was knew for the Chosen Hero? The last time he'd really spoken to Sparrot had been in the brink of another adventure, as well.

“Link, for all the great adventurer that you are,” Sparrot began quite calmly, “no matter who or when you are, you can truly be quite the dull-minded boy.”

Now the fortune teller was not making any amount of sense, and the Hero was not sure what to say or do at all. 

Sparrot turned to consider him calmly. “Link, I shall ask you again.” There was a dramatic pause, or at least the Hero felt that he had paused for dramatic effect. “... What is it that you truly wish to know? I cannot tell you if you do not ask me.” 

In that span of a moment, the Hero of the Sky found himself with feelings that he had never anticipated. What was happening that was allowing him to carry this conversation with Sparrot? What was it that he really wanted to know in that moment? The last thing that he had remembered thinking before Sparrot had arrived, was thinking about the others.

Just as the others had come into thought, the world around him shifted again. The Loftwings flying above disappeared, and were replaced with the long sails of a boat, which he and Sparrot were now standing in, as it went through the waters. 

“Your other selves had adventures just like you,” stated Sparrot calmly as the water raged around them. “I am sure you have pondered over them, and wondered what they had seen.” 

“Of course I have, I'm sure we all have,” stated the Hero. “But I can't ask a fortune teller to tell me those things!” It'd be wrong. It'd be a breach. One he'd be unwilling to break. “I'd be intruding on the things they have trusted with me, and I can't ask that of you!”

“But for you, it is very different.” Now, they were no longer in a boat on the water. Now, they were in a vast, green field, the distance shrouded in a mysterious twilight. “You are the Chosen Hero that started it all.” 

“It still does not give me the right to intrude on their memories.”

Now they were in a teeming festival, filled with people, and children laughing in the distance. “And if they cannot trust you with that information?” 

“Then that's what they chose, I'm not asking them to trust me with those.” 

Once more, the scenery changed. Another great, vast field, four bright red lasers pointing to a destroyed castle. “And what does that make you? Someone who cannot be trusted with even the most fragile of memories?” 

“It makes me someone they are at least comfortable to be around!”

Now they were in a town, impoverished and humble. “No, it makes you someone they simply tolerate, does it not? Trust is an important factor, particularly when you are travellers, together.”

“And I trust them with my life.”

A fortress, now. Glowing blue crystals marking the alliance of those that had claimed it hovered around them. “Do you? Do you truly?” 

There was no hesitation. “Of course. With my life.” 

Now they were in a small village in the woods. Trees had been hollowed out to make homes, and fairies teemed around in the air. “Link, perhaps you do not understand your opportunity. In this moment, you can learn all that your descendants will do. In this moment, you can know the future of the land that you will help to create – all three streams of time for it.”

The Hero knew. He knew the truth of this moment, or at least, he suspected. He stayed quiet. 

Sparrot stepped a little further away from him, now, stepping into the calm centre of the village. The Hero watched him carefully. The fortune teller turned, and once more the landscape shifted. Now it was a quiet clearing in the woods. A distant sound of a harp and a voice streamed through the air. “Link.”

“... Sparrot.”

“What is it that you wish to know?”

The Hero of the Sky was quiet for a moment, as he glanced around the landscape. In this moment, it had been many things. It had been his home, with Loftwings in the sky. It had been a boat, over the vast ocean dotted with islands. It had been two vast fields, one in twilight, the other in shambles. It had been a festival. A humble town. A fortress, and a village in the forest. A clearing in the woods, enchanted with a song.

It had been everything that the Hero of the Sky had needed to see in order to know the truth of this moment he had found himself in. “... Sparrot, I want to know...” 

He paused, watching as the fortune teller stared at him with his unsettling eyes. He wondered, for a moment, just what his friends had gone through in their lives. For him, it was worrying. The subtle things they did told him volumes, that they had each gone through such trialling matters. It was almost unfair. 

Of course he wanted to know what made them the way that they were. Why did the Hero of the Four Sword mutter to himself, in almost complete arguments, under his breath? Why did the Hero of Time and the Hero of Legend stay up at ungodly hours of the night? 

But there was something very wrong with all of this. These things that Sparrot had shown him? He had no power to do this. To appear in Hyrule, in a different time entirely...? To send him away to Skyloft, and then all these other places? To cause his fellow adventurers to disappear, and even when they had been asleep? He knew for a fact that the Hero of Warriors would have cut Sparrot just for trying to take the Hero of Wind as he slept, swaddled in his scarf. The Hero of Time would have gone for the neck. The Hero of Legend wouldn't have let any of it happen, as he was likely awake when this all came to pass.

Which meant to the Hero of the Sky, that this conversation was not what it seemed. “Sparrot... I want to know if I'm dreaming.” 

The beautiful forest clearing shifted back to that lonely landscape by the cave. Now, however, the Hero noticed that there were puddles dotting the ground. “Link, the whole world at your feet, and you want to know something so trivial?” Sparrot asked, almost shocked. “Well, the truth is, yes, you are. Quite soundly, too.”

The Hero of the Sky tried to focus on the world around him. He could hear the distant sound of an ocarina, and found himself breaking into a small smile. So, the Hero of Time woke up by now, huh? “Then why am I dreaming of you?” 

“Answers don't always make sense, now, do they, boy?” asked Sparrot. “The future is a thing that scares you, isn't it? The future of the boys with you... and the futures that they came from, they are all yours, and one day they will be you, and you them.” The fortune teller gave an ominous smile. “And that scares you.”

In that moment, the Hero recalled the horrible truth of all of this. They all bore the same soul of Courage. However, despite that, they were all different from night and day. They had differing personalities... skillsets. Adventures. Clothing styles. Even backgrounds. They had arguments, yet they easily made up, and gathered together by the fire, easily overjoyed to be with one another all over again for another great meal. 

Yet, the Hero of Sky could not help but wonder. Despite all these differences, were they technically the same person? It was a fear that he bore quietly to himself. A fear that he wondered each time he looked at one of them. It was a quiet fear, that teemed only if he gave notice of it, like the realization of one's breathing, or heartbeat. 

Once noticed, one could not shake it, even though they did it every day.

“... It does,” the Hero of Sky finally said aloud. “It... It really does. And... I doomed them with this curse. This... reality. I did it to them.” 

“If you trust them,” said Sparrot then, “and they trust you, as you say they do, then they... well, in my honest opinion, boy, do not blame you as you blame yourself.” The dreamborn fortune teller gave a stout nod. “Yes, that is quite the truth, if I do say so myself.” He began to step, ever so slightly away. “But enough of that, yes? Perhaps you should return to them. You have been gone for quite a while.” 

The Hero gave a nod. “... Yeah.” 

Then he opened his eyes, and rubbed at them. The smell of an extinguished fire came to his nose, and he looked up to see the Hero of Time passed out before it, an ocarina in his hands. A lantern was lit by the Hero of Legend, who was clearly still reading his book. Blinking, the Hero of the Sky peered out to the landscape. He saw nothing but the fog and the rain, and heard little but the sound of distant, rolling thunder. With a sigh, he held his sailcloth close, and huddled against the wall he had been sleeping against. He made only the small, mental note that the Hero of Legend had looked up at him only momentarily, before returning to his book. 

In that moment, despite all the thunder and the rain, the Hero of the Sky simply felt safe. Around him, the others all slept, content in their own, small ways. Though the Hero of the Four Sword was fitful in his sleep, he was at least dreaming, just as all the others were. The Hero of Hyrule was curled up near the reading Hero of Legend, a small snore escaping him. The Hero of Warriors and the Hero of Wind had become a tangled mess, while Wolfie was being a willing pillow for the Hero of the Wild. He yawned once more, wondering what time it was, and how long he had been asleep. 

“... First watch...?” the Hero of the Sky managed out as he yawned. 

The Hero of Legend looked up at him once more. There were bags under his eyes. “... Go back to sleep, flyboy.” 

Noting that the enigmatic veteran had neither confirmed or denied that he was first watch, Sky got as comfy as he could, even deciding to lay against the ground in order to relax some more. He stared out at the ceiling of their current shelter, seeing the different shapes in the rock. The sound of a page turning gathered his attention for but a small moment, and the Hero of the Sky decided then, as he drifted off once more, that he'd take first watch tomorrow night. He'd taken notes of each of their habits. It was another sleepless night for the Hero of Legend.

Feeling quite content, the Hero of the Sky closed his eyes.


End file.
